Thursday, November 22, 2012

The distant and unloved colony world of Russalka has no land, only the raging sea. No clear skies, only the endless storm clouds. Beneath the waves, the people live in pressurised environments and take what they need from the boundless ocean. It is a hard life, but it is theirs and they fought a war against Earth to protect it. But wars leave wounds that never quite heal, and secrets that never quite lie silent.

Katya Kuriakova doesn’t care much about ancient history like that, though. She is making her first submarine voyage as crew; the first nice, simple journey of what she expects to be a nice, simple career.

There is nothing nice and simple about the deep black waters of Russalka, however; soon she will encounter pirates and war criminals, see death and tragedy at first hand, and realise that her world’s future lies on the narrowest of knife edges. For in the crushing depths lies a sleeping monster, an abomination of unknown origin, and when it wakes, it will seek out and kill every single person on the planet.

Thoughts:
As much as I want to like this, it just felt short of everything that I hope for. I love space operas and the whole concept of a space underwater world sounds exciting at first. But halfway through, I just realised that the story consist of battle after battle with an unknown enemy that seemed so superior in every way.

As a main character, Katya is certainly a good role model for young girls everywhere. She's smart, strong and can handle extreme conditions fairly well. But there's just something robotic about her. She seemed to know everything and can predict the outcome of a certain strategic move in a battle that even a senior navy Officer has no idea of. Granted the author depicted her as some sort of genius navigator but even geniuses have their own shortcomings, right? And the other characters are not that interesting either. It is so obvious that the pirate; Kane is hiding something and the other characters which mainly consist of several pirates and naval officers are a little bit bland.

If you're a fan of nonstop action without much character development, then this is the book for you. The lack of romantic elements might turn off female readers but male fans might just enjoy this book.